CHAPTER XXIII. 

 Partner a Necessity. 



I promised to give some reasons why a partner is necessary, 

 and as I have trapped many seasons both with and with- 

 out a partner, I should know something about the subject. 

 A writer, some time ago, in Hunter-Trader-Trapper said 

 that it took some trappers fifty years to learn what others learned 

 in a week. Now, I fully agree with this writer, for it only took 

 me about three seconds to learn that a partner was necessary, and 

 it came about in this way. 



I had several bear traps set near what is known as the Hogs- 

 back on the old Jersey Turnpike Road in Pennsylvania. The traps 

 were strung along the ridge that divides the waters of the East 

 Fork and the West Fork, which are tributaries of the west branch 

 of the Susquehanna River and were setting from one and a half 

 miles to four miles of the wagon road, and about nine miles 

 from any house. 



The time in question was the last days of October or the first 

 of November, and the day a very warm one for that time of the 

 year. I had been walking very fast, in fact where the ground 

 was favorable, I would take a dog trot. I wished to make the 

 rounds of the traps and get out of the woods that day. When I 

 came to where the second trap had been set, I found it gone, 

 clog and all. The place where the trap was setting was in the 

 head of a small ravine and near the edge of a windfall, just on 

 the lower side of the bait pen, and but a few feet from it lay the 

 partly decayed trunk of a large tree. I jumped on to this tree 

 to get a good look down into the windfall to see if bruin was any- 

 where in sight. I had scarcely got on the log when I received a 

 reception which I think was something equal to that the Russian 

 Naval Fleet met with in the Corean Straits. I had jumped square 



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